THE ONE-DAY-OLD CHICK TRADE 



The one-day-old chick trade has come to stay. This may be 

 said to be a separate and rather new branch of the chicken business, 

 but it has passed its experimental stage, and both in this country 

 and in England it is becoming popular. It can scarcely be said to 

 be a new business, because it has been known and practiced in 

 Egypt for thousands of years, in fact, it is the only way known 

 there of raising chickens. As soon as one of the large hatcheries 

 there hatches out the chickens, notice is sent to the surrounding vil- 

 lages, and the twenty or forty thousand little chicks are sold within 

 twenty-four hours, or before being fed. 



The one-day-old chick trade is, as its title indicates, the selling 

 of baby chicks the day they are hatched. There has been and still 

 is wide discussion over this business, which at first met with but 

 little encouragement from the breeders of fancy poultry, some 

 fanciers averring that it will injure the sale of their fancy eggs, 

 while others even threaten to call in the humane society to prevent 

 such cruelty as selling chickens at so tender an age. 



Some of our long-headed fanciers, both men and women, finding 

 there was a demand for one-day-old chicks, rose to the emergency, 

 doubled the price of their eggs in live chicks, and have made a 

 great success of the business. I have had letters from Nevada, 

 Montana, Arizona, New Mexico and even from Old Mexico and 

 Texas, telling of the great success poultry raisers have had in those 

 distant places, raising the chicks after their long journey from Los 

 Angeles, one man writing that he had raised 88% and another 

 90% to maturity. 



L. Yarian of Lima, Ohio, writes: "No branch of the poultry 

 business is attracting more attention at present and no branch of 

 the poultry business is more worthy than the selling of day-old 

 chicks, with hundreds of others in all parts of the United States. 

 I believe it is the best branch of the poultry business ever orig- 

 inated." 



Day-old chicks or chicks taken direct from the incubator and 

 securely packed, can be safely shipped to all parts of the United 

 States, except to a very few places, located in some out of the 

 way place where the chicks would have to travel for more than 

 three days. 



Occasionally a chick may die en route, but don't they die for you 

 at home, when they are only a couple days old? Certainly they 

 do, and what proof can be advanced that the same chick that dies 

 en route would not have died at home? Is it a cruel practice? I 

 answer emphatically, No. Then some people will ask, what will the 

 chick eat while on the trip? I reply, nothing, because the last thing 

 the chick does before it leaves the shell is to absorb the yolk of 

 the egg, which is Nature's own food intended to furnish nourish- 

 ment for the baby chick until its little digestive system gets in 

 good working order and is able to handle the food properly. 



